State Grant Expenditures as a Percentage of Total State Support for Higher Education, 2016-17

Overall, state grant expenditures constituted 13% of total state support for higher education in 2016-17. Thirteen states devoted less than 5% of their higher education funding to grant aid for students; nine states directed more than 20% of their funding to individual students rather than to institutions.

Figure 24B: State Grant Expenditures as a Percentage of Total State Support for Higher Education by State, 2016-17

Notes & Sources

In 2016-17, four states provided 42% of all state grant aid dollars, with California accounting for 18% of the total.

Some state-funded grant aid is in the form of “tuition set-aside” programs through which a portion of tuition revenues at public institutions—or of increases in tuition—is dedicated to grant aid. Some of these funds are included in reported state grant aid, but others are not. Tuition remission dollars, not always reported as state grant aid, are sizable in several states.